End User wrote:My reality is that on just a single 1920x1200 display, in newer games (Crysis 3), that a single card = unplayable vs SLI = playable. CPU is an OC'ed 3770K.

This is true, but ONLY for Crysis (I think - Metro 2033 comes close, though)

Part of the reason is because Crysis pushes more polygons and latest tech without fear of the consequences.Part of the reason is because the game isn't even close to being well-made, or optimised.

Why are you posting links related to Crysis 2 when the game being discussed is Crysis 3? I think it's a little bit premature to start instantly assuming that Crysis 3 will have same faults as the previous one, at least until someone posts similar analysis for it...

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OP - If you want to upgrade now, get a 670 and see if you're happy with that single-GPU performance. If you decide later that it's not enough, get another 670. I know that doesn't satisfy the desire to move away from multi-GPU, but this really is the best advice I can give if you really want better performance than you currently have. Otherwise wait until the next gen, as others have already stated.

At any rate, SLI is much better in its current implementation than it has been in the past. New drivers are also coming out for it immediately upon launch of new AAA titles.

End User wrote:My reality is that on just a single 1920x1200 display, in newer games (Crysis 3), that a single card = unplayable vs SLI = playable. CPU is an OC'ed 3770K.

Crysis 3 is a rubbish game, technologically speaking. （−＿−；）Nothing it is doing should be anywhere near as demanding as it is. It doesn't even look good compared to other games out right now -- especially when you consider how it *runs* compared to other games. They optimized it poorly so it would be (/ﾟДﾟ)/ OMG DOES IT RUN CRYSIS 3? like it *still* is with the original Crysis, which is also very poorly optimized. Note that I'm not talking about ephemeral things like algorithm optimizations or even codebase optimizations, although I have little doubt some of that needs to happen. I'm talking about more indirect optimizations like level design and polycount optimization, which can nevertheless have a massive effect on a game's performance. By the way,, having seen SLI 670s in Crysis 3, while the framerate is higher than in single-card mode, it isn't any smoother subjectively. I certainly wouldn't call it "playable". ┐(‘～`；)┌

End User wrote:Metro 2033 for sure and Borderlands 2. Even TF2 takes a hit on fps when SlI is disabled.

Borderlands 2 is playable with 100% max details in 1080p on a single GF104. （´ー｀）It's only PhysX that causes the massive chug. Disable PhysX and see how it runs for you. Saying TF2 "takes a hit" with SLI is disabled is meaningless; of course it does. It's not like you NEED SLI to run it though, anymore than you do for Borderlands 2 or Metro. You getting a lot of benefit from having over 200fps versus 120? (￣ェ￣;)

End User wrote:I always forget to enable SLI after a driver update and the missing GPU is noticeable in most of my current crop of games.

There's that word again, "noticeable". Of course, saying this is pointless, as I remarked earlier. By the way, SLI should be enabled by default after a driver update. （￣～￣;） I have never had to do this through a dozen or more driver updates.

Chrispy_ wrote:There seem to be an awful lot of people here who have tried multi-GPU solutions, been irritated by the broken promises, faults, issues and incompatibilities and will never go dual-GPU again. Has anyone actually owned a dual-GPU rig and thought it was genuinely better than an equivalent single card?

Sure. My SLI GTX460s were definitely better overall than a single card. Did they have serious bugs? Absolutely!(≧σ≦) Did I experience microstutter? No doubt. ~(>_<~) Would I go back to SLI 460s vs. a single 460? You bet! (-`д･´)σ The experience with SLI 460s was objectively better overall with a single card, but keep in mind, I only paid $100 for the second card, long before retail 460s had fallen anywhere near that price. (Actually, when you find them, they're still more than that.

JohnC wrote: Why are you posting links related to Crysis 2 when the game being discussed is Crysis 3?

Crysis 2 and 3 both run on the same engine. So articles highlighting unbelievably sloppy examples of coding and engine laziness are relevant when discussing Crysis 3. Small puddle offscreen? Render the whole ocean. 6-sided plank of wood? 100,000 polygons, yada yada yada. Even without the DX11 patch, it was a heavy engine on PC hardware despite running reasonably well on consoles. The whole thing stank of poorly-optimised, rushed console port and I'm not quite sure why anyone would want to defend Crytek after such a blatant insult to the PC gaming industry that birthed them.

End User wrote:and Borderlands 2. Even TF2 takes a hit on fps when SlI is disabled.

Your rig has other issues, by the sounds of it; An underclocked 7850 can run 1080p Borderlands 2 very well, pegging the game at 60fps as it bumps against vysnc most of the time. A 660Ti can manage the same feat even at 2560x1440.As for TF2, can't netbooks run that now? I haven't played TF2 for a few years, but I'm pretty sure I had either an X1800 or a Geforce 6800GT running it nice and smoothly!

Edit - Nevermind, I see you're running relatively old 570's so I guess you would notice the difference dropping down to one. They were great cards once, but that's 2010 tech and we're in 2013; If you read back a page, you'll see that we were debating how a single GPU has always existed that can max out most games (Crysis 1/2/3 being the exception); by which I meant that whenever a new game came out, there was always a current, single-GPU solution able to max it out. Emphasis on 'current' and not 'over two years old'

drfish wrote:So, obviously I'm thinking about getting a 7970 or something, and my nephew is thinking about getting a 7950 - so if we bought them at the same time that should net us the six game "Never Settle" bundle, right? Seems there aren't any retailers that really mention getting the double games for buying two cards, is it a real thing? Any reason it wouldn't work with a mismatched 7970 and 7950?

Wish I could answer that. I'm in the UK and this month's quartet of 7970s yielded four copies of Crysis3 and Bioshock Infinite, when I would have liked at least one copy of the upcoming Tomb Raider instead of the multiples.This might be helpful info though:

Not pictured: the "Ultimate Reload" deal, thanks to which buyers of two Radeon HD 7900-series GPUs will be entitled to free copies of all three aforementioned titles, plus Far Cry 3, Hitman: Absolution, and Sleeping Dogs. Note that I'm saying GPUs, not cards. The promotion will apply to dual-GPU solutions like Asus' ROG Ares II. If you prefer to get two separate cards, AMD says you'll just have to check out with both of them in your e-tail shopping cart at the same time—or in a pre-baked PC from a systems integrator.

Last edited by Chrispy_ on Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Some people ask me why I have always enclosed my signature in spoiler tags; There is a good reason for that, but I can't elaborate without giving away the plot twist.

PARTICIPANTS WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO OBTAIN AMD UNIQUE IDS OR KEY CODES AFTER ALL AMD UNIQUE IDS AND KEY CODES HAVE BEEN DISTRIBUTED

Sleeping dogs is a much older promotion. They may have run out of codes for that already

and

Eligible AMD Products are the AMD Radeon™ HD 7970, AMD Radeon™ HD 7950 and the AMD Radeon™ HD 7970 GHz Edition Graphics CardsPrior to purchasing, confirm that your retailer is participating in the Promotion and that the product qualifies for the Promotion.

So, in theory the deal is good but they wouldn't add this clause if it didn't mean there weren't loads of exceptions.

Some people ask me why I have always enclosed my signature in spoiler tags; There is a good reason for that, but I can't elaborate without giving away the plot twist.

End User wrote:and Borderlands 2. Even TF2 takes a hit on fps when SlI is disabled.

Your rig has other issues, by the sounds of it; My underclocked (725/1000) 7850 can run 1080p Borderlands 2 on a lowly core2quad and basically peg the game at 60fps as it bumps against vysnc most of the time. A 660Ti can manage the same feat even at 2560x1440.

Why are you referring to 7950 benchmarks backed up by a Core i7-3820 when you have an underclocked 7850 running with a Core 2 Quad? Not only is it a different GPU but your CPU is throttling your lesser GPU something terrible.

Chrispy_ wrote:As for TF2, can't netbooks run that now? I haven't played TF2 for a few years, but I'm pretty sure I had either an X1800 or a Geforce 6800GT running it nice and smoothly!

You are out of touch. TF2 is barely playable on an Ivy Bridge ultrabook. I would not want to play it on an X1800. TF2 at max pushes a GPU more than you think on a packed server.

Chrispy_ wrote:Edit - Nevermind, I see you're running relatively old 570's so I guess you would notice the difference dropping down to one. They were great cards once, but that's 2010 tech and we're in 2013; If you read back a page, you'll see that we were debating how a single GPU has always existed that can max out most games (Crysis 1/2/3 being the exception); by which I meant that whenever a new game came out, there was always a current, single-GPU solution able to max it out. Emphasis on 'current' and not 'over two years old'

Yes, I have old GPUs. My point was that SLI has kept me in the game for over 2 years. I would love to switch to a single card/GPU but I don't think this is the time to buy. I could easily drop $ on a Titan but that would be ridiculous misuse of funds (bad memories of my dual 7800 GTX 512 purchase will never die). The wait for a new GPU at a decent price point continues.

I find it incredibly amusing that your stock 7850 at standard clocks is basically at the same level as one of my 570's http://goo.gl/P4C43 The fact that your underclocked card is being throttled by your Core 2 makes my amusement all the more enjoyable.

So, obviously I'm thinking about getting a 7970 or something, and my nephew is thinking about getting a 7950 - so if we bought them at the same time that should net us the six game "Never Settle" bundle, right? Seems there aren't any retailers that really mention getting the double games for buying two cards, is it a real thing? Any reason it wouldn't work with a mismatched 7970 and 7950?

ok, I found a page at AMD that lists supporting retailers that offer the Never Settle Bundle and yes from what I read an HD 7970 and an HD 7950 should qualify as they are both HD 79xx cards.

I've dealt extensively with NCIX.com in the past and you can call them on the phone for more details.... or at least I hope you can, their search function is one of the worst in the business and didn't bring anything up about it but I'm sure a phone call will do.

I emailed 5 or 6 shops, we'll see what replies I get. Initially it looks like both Superbiiz and NewEgg know nothing about the six game bundle but I am waiting for them to respond to my request for clarification. I'll will post their actually replies here as they give final word. I sent them the PDF I found as well as this link.

Edit: I also email AMD directly, why not?

Edit 2: "Your recent incident update was from an email address not associated with the incident. In an effort to maintain the security of information, we cannot update the incident using this email address. If you are the incident owner and your email address has changed, or you want to be able to update the incident using this email account, please update your contact information using the following link, then resubmit your update." - Gah! Apparently NewEgg doesn't understand the concept of aliases... Luckily as admin I can temporarily change the reply to address to the alias I used, how do you like that for security, NewEgg?

The thread is about single vs multi-GPU, and you brought up 1080p as an example resolution for BL2That link was simply to show that even with almost double the workload (3.7MP vs 2.1MP) you can get fluid gameplay on only a 660Ti, Titan/680/670 not required. By implication, the 2.1Megapixel 1080p resolution should be a piece of cake and even lowly 7850's with a handicap can manage it.

End User wrote:

Chrispy_ wrote:<Doesn't TF2 run on anything?>

<No, TF2 can really choke>

Okay - I'm out of touch, Haven't seen anything Source-engined run slow in forever.

End User wrote:

Chrispy_ wrote:<Trying to get back on topic and not dragged into willy-waving competitions about specific hardware><For every new, demanding game, there is usually a single-GPU solution on market that will run it fast enough for the 99.9% majority of buyers>Yes, I have old GPUs. My point was that SLI has kept me in the game for over 2 years. I would love to switch to a single card/GPU but I don't think this is the time to buy. I could easily drop $ on a Titan but that would be ridiculous misuse of funds (bad memories of my dual 7800 GTX 512 purchase will never die). The wait for a new GPU at a decent price point continues.

I find it incredibly amusing that your stock 7850 at standard clocks is basically at the same level as one of my 570's http://goo.gl/P4C43 The fact that your underclocked card is being throttled by your Core 2 makes my amusement all the more enjoyable.

And if my 570's are "old", what does that make your Core 2 Quad?

This will be the willy-waving I was trying to avoid. My Core 2 Quad is old; So old that I can afford to underclock a half-decent GPU and still not lose performance. My 2500K is old. Hell, most of the 7970's I have in the farm are 'old' because they're not GHz editions and the i7's aren't all Ivy Bridge for that matter. What does this have to do with the thread topic though?

I agree that the 570's have aged pretty well, Crysis3 being the exception, but Crysis3 brings everything to its knees so it's silly to use that as a representation of PC gaming. Cryengine 3 is just representative of bad design, putting in every checkbox graphical feature - way too much at once with grievous disregard for whether or not it's a good idea or will even run.

The OP's 5850's CF will likely run Crysis3 about as well as a 7850 or a single 570, so to get back on point "now is the time to upgrade, if you want to play Crysis 3"

Some people ask me why I have always enclosed my signature in spoiler tags; There is a good reason for that, but I can't elaborate without giving away the plot twist.

Thank you for the information you provided. If you order two of item # N82E16814202008 , you will get two copies of the free gift item # 00-995-145. The promotion expires after 3/31/2013 11:59:59 PM. Offer is valid while supply last. There is only this free gift item offered with this video card. And there are no other 5 different games offered. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

I hope AMD gets back to you; I've bought about thirty 7800 or 7900 cards recently and every time I just get the same cardboard sheet with Steam codes for each same card.

Went through the Deus Ex HR + CMR Showdown + Nexuiz bundles for a while.Then it switched to a free copy of Sleeping dogs.Now it's the Bioshock Infinite + FC3, or Bioshock Infinite + Tomb Raider.

Don't get me wrong, the bundles are great because pretty much ever gamer in the office is buying me drinks at the moment, but I've never once been given the dual-gpu bundles, despite buying anything up to 7 cards in one order.

Some people ask me why I have always enclosed my signature in spoiler tags; There is a good reason for that, but I can't elaborate without giving away the plot twist.

Looks like NCIX won't do this either, waiting for a confirmation. Seems like everyone needs to be asked the same question twice, I'm three for three being told about the bundle I already knew about and not having my actual question answered.

Source-engine based games have been CPU-bound for years. It was designed to work with first generation of DX9 era hardware (Radeon 95xx-98xx and Geforce FX family) which came out over a decade ago.

My current rig handles Source-based games at 2Megapixel with silly amounts of AA/AF and it still pumps out an absurd framerate. My older rig could do it with a single 4850 and Core 2 Q6600 and still yield 60-100FPS.

Crysis 3 isn't going to be the system killer as fanboys tout it to be, unless you go full retard with insanely high AA/AF settings at 4Megapixel and still expect 100FPS.......

End User wrote: Saying TF2 "takes a hit" with SLI is disabled is meaningless; of course it does. It's not like you NEED SLI to run it though, anymore than you do for Borderlands 2 or Metro. You getting a lot of benefit from having over 200fps versus 120?

I don't care that I hit 300 FPS on an empty default TF2 map standing still. With my settings the way I like them, on a full TF2 server running an intense map/mod setup, FPS will drop like a stone. I want to avoid going below 50 FPS in the middle of a fight. It is ALWAYS about the minimum FPS. This applies to any game. Focusing on the max FPS is pointless.

auxy wrote:

End User wrote:My reality is that on just a single 1920x1200 display, in newer games (Crysis 3), that a single card = unplayable vs SLI = playable. CPU is an OC'ed 3770K.

Crysis 3 is a rubbish game, technologically speaking. （−＿−；）Nothing it is doing should be anywhere near as demanding as it is. It doesn't even look good compared to other games out right now -- especially when you consider how it *runs* compared to other games.

"Rubbish" engine or not I like it.

auxy wrote:

End User wrote:Metro 2033 for sure and Borderlands 2. Even TF2 takes a hit on fps when SlI is disabled.

Borderlands 2 is playable with 100% max details in 1080p on a single GF104. （´ー｀）It's only PhysX that causes the massive chug. Disable PhysX and see how it runs for you.

End User wrote:And if my 570's are "old", what does that make your Core 2 Quad?

This will be the willy-waving I was trying to avoid. My Core 2 Quad is old; So old that I can afford to underclock a half-decent GPU and still not lose performance. My 2500K is old. Hell, most of the 7970's I have in the farm are 'old' because they're not GHz editions and the i7's aren't all Ivy Bridge for that matter. What does this have to do with the thread topic though?

LOL. YOU started this by ripping into my post to the OP. YOU called my gear old. You can't cry about now.

If you are so afraid of "willy-waving" then I'm not sure and enthusiast tech site is the place for you.

About TF2... Have you tried playing with "Multicore Rendering" option enabled? I always had this enabled (along with setting other in-game settings to the max) and never had FPS issues when playing on large servers (I never play on servers with less than 32 ppl), regardless of the card I've used for playing it

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JohnC wrote:About TF2... Have you tried playing with "Multicore Rendering" option enabled? I always had this enabled (along with setting other in-game settings to the max) and never had FPS issues when playing on large servers (I never play on servers with less than 32 ppl), regardless of the card I've used for playing it

Of course.

I've been playing TF2 since it was in beta back in September of 2007. It's my primary game. I've got over 1800 hrs in it. I think I started back when I had a Q6600/8800GTS 640 MB setup. I moved on to a Q6600/GTX 260 combo. The Q6600 was throttling the GTX 260 so I upgraded to an i7 920 @4.2GHz (big jump in fps). I then installed a GTX 570 SLI setup followed a year or so later by an upgrade to an OC'ed i7-3770K system. I still have the i7 920/GTX 260 setup running TF2 under Linux and I see a similiar fps hit on busy servers. I monitor my GPU usage via MSI Afterburner. I've got a 150/10 connection and ping is not an issue.

There is always the possibility that my setup is **** up but I doubt it. My system benchmarks where it should.

That's weak, man! I got like 2000 hours of playtime in the first year after its release, not counting any further years Unfortunately Valve did some major screw-ups couple of years ago and all my stats were randomly decreased by random values, including "time played" for all my Steam games and Valve said they can't restore such data

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That's weak, man! I got like 2000 hours of playtime in the first year after its release, not counting any further years Unfortunately Valve did some major screw-ups couple of years ago and all my stats were randomly decreased by random values, including "time played" for all my Steam games and Valve said they can't restore such data

Sometimes longer than that (on weekends and on holidays) It was a pretty addictive game (for some reason the FPS genre gets me "addicted" like nothing else - I had to spend extra year in university because of too much RtCW's multiplayer, which I remember playing on some sort of GeForce 2 card and a ginormous 19" Sony CRT monitor which I could barely lift) and I have almost "finished" playing WoW by that time (was still occasionally spending time there after new expansions, but not for long) and there were no other interesting MMORPG's to play, so I had plenty of time for it after work (playing 'till very late in the night when the servers got pretty empty, then sleeping a few hours before work and then "dozing off" at work ).

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JohnC wrote:Sometimes longer than that (on weekends and on holidays) It was a pretty addictive game (for some reason the FPS genre gets me "addicted" like nothing else - I had to spend extra year in university because of too much RtCW's multiplayer, which I remember playing on some sort of GeForce 2 card and a ginormous 19" Sony CRT monitor which I could barely lift) and I have almost "finished" playing WoW by that time (was still occasionally spending time there after new expansions, but not for long) and there were no other interesting MMORPG's to play, so I had plenty of time for it after work

Counter-Strike was the same for me, but Bad Company 2 and now BF3 have replaced that. I don't think that I've ever been able to get into an MMO for more than a month, nor worked on an RPG for more than two (Witcher series, Mass Effect/Dragon Age, Fallout/Oblivion/Skyrim, etc.), and I took maybe a week to get through Starcraft II, without picking it up again.

I think I like the RPGs the most, and I wish there were more good ones, but the community side of FPSs keeps me pretty firmly rooted there.

The biggest performance issue with TF2 on modern systems is actually caching. TF2 has a silly amount of content and the game itself is still a 32-bit program (2-3GiB usage unless you force to enable large addressing space aware which allows it go up to 4GB). The program cannot fully cache all of the in-game content unless you play on servers that disable hats and alternative weapons. Which means your HDD/SSD will always have move data around when a new player with completely different equipment then the existing client joins the server. You will notice this as a sharp spike in framerate and latency.

JohnC wrote:Sometimes longer than that (on weekends and on holidays) It was a pretty addictive game (for some reason the FPS genre gets me "addicted" like nothing else - I had to spend extra year in university because of too much RtCW's multiplayer, which I remember playing on some sort of GeForce 2 card and a ginormous 19" Sony CRT monitor which I could barely lift) and I have almost "finished" playing WoW by that time (was still occasionally spending time there after new expansions, but not for long) and there were no other interesting MMORPG's to play, so I had plenty of time for it after work

Counter-Strike was the same for me, but Bad Company 2 and now BF3 have replaced that. I don't think that I've ever been able to get into an MMO for more than a month, nor worked on an RPG for more than two (Witcher series, Mass Effect/Dragon Age, Fallout/Oblivion/Skyrim, etc.), and I took maybe a week to get through Starcraft II, without picking it up again.

I think I like the RPGs the most, and I wish there were more good ones, but the community side of FPSs keeps me pretty firmly rooted there.

Yea, I spent a lot of time with BC2 too... For some reason BF3 didn't "grab" me as much, though it is still a fun game to play occasionally. Of course, none of these games can compare to sheer amount of fun I've had with original Unreal Tournament (Q3 sux! ), even when I was playing it on my crappy dial-up connection (that 290ms ping... ) - lots of good times with this game especially playing together with $GB$ guys ($GB$OverToad, $GB$The_Other_Guy, $GB$Pox, $GB$Infinity, $GB$Revelation, $GB$Destrukt, $GB$Chicken, $GB$StryfE and the others I can't remember offhand)... Ah, teh memories! ...Ok now, this is really starting to get off-topic, so I'll just stop here

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